


Borrowing Black

by Rinkafic



Series: John Loves Rodney [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:32:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Rodney take a turn babysitting Torren</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowing Black

“You’re up, Sheppard. He wants to hear a story,” McKay came out of the bedroom and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

John rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t tell him a story?”

“I tried, apparently the Little Quantum Singularity that Could is a giant failure with the Athosian under ten set.” McKay picked up his abandoned bowl of popcorn from the table and threw himself down on the sofa.

“You suck,” John swatted his shoulder and gave up his comfortable position. He hit the power button on the DVD, “Don’t watch without me, I waited for you.”

“No horror stories, you know how Teyla feels about those!” Rodney chortled over his shoulder as he reminded John of the moratorium. As if John could forget, Teyla had specifically made a point to remind him on ther way out the door.

“Hey kiddo,” John said as he went into Torren’s bedroom. The decor was a weird mash-up of Earth culture and Athosian, the boy really was a product of both societies.

“Hi John. Rodney’s stories suck, tell me one please. A scary one! With blood.”

“Don’t say suck.”

“You say it all the time.”

“I’m big, you’re little, don’t say it.” He rubbed Torren’s dark head and laughed. “Sorry TJ, Mom said no go on the horror stuff, and the snitch out there is listening.”

“Awwww.”

“How about one of your story books?” John pointed.

Torren glanced at the bookshelf and frowned. “They’re for little kids.”

The boy was growing up too fast. John couldn’t believe he would be nine soon. Time had flown by so quickly. John sat on the chair next to the bed, “Okay, so then how about one with a little blood at the end?”

“Yeah!” Torren gave him a bloodthirsty little grin and slid down under the covers. John noticed he had not yet outgrown his favorite stuffed dog, it was still on the bed beside him, though at a respectable distance from the pillow. Plausible deniability, John supposed.

“So, once there was this boy. His father named him Besha.”

“Besha is a girl’s name!”

John pointed a finger at him. “Exactly. Now, I bet you can see that this caused a whole lot of trouble for poor Besha. He got picked on so much by the other boys that he learned really early on how to fight and he got good at fighting. The girls laughed at him too, and pretty soon, Besha just started staying away from everyone. His father left when he was really little, so Besha couldn’t ask him why he had given him that horrible name. His mother died and then he had no one to care for anymore so he started to wander.

“Besha decided that he hated his father for giving him a girl’s name and making his life so hard and lonely. He never stayed in one place for very long because he never learned to make friends, and he didn’t like telling people his name or about his childhood. As he got older, he started to search for his father, he wanted to hurt him the way he had been hurt.”

“That’s not good,” Torren said.

“No, it wasn’t really. But that’s what happens when you let hate eat away at you. It makes you mean, and it takes over everything,” John patted Torren’s leg through the blanket. “So Besha started looking everywhere for the man that had given him that terrible girl’s name and ruined his life. The hunt took over everything. He looked in every tavern in every town he went to.

“Then one day, he found him. He carried a worn and ratty photograph in his pocket that his mother had thrown away, and he knew the man there was his father. He walked right up to him in the bar, fearless and mean as ever and he said, ‘My name is Besha.’ And what do you think he did?”

“He killed him?” John’s bloodthirsty little audience asked hopefully.

“Well, he tried. He punched him square in the face and then they fought. They tore up the whole bar, broke the furniture, and crashed through the window. They were both covered in mud and blood and neither was winning the fight for the longest time, they were so evenly matched. But then Besha got in a really good hit and the old man went down.

“He was beaten and he held up his hands and said so. He could see that Besha meant to kill him. ‘You should thank me, before you kill me,’ he said. And that confused Besha enough that he put down his knife to listen. ‘You just fought a hell of a fight,’ the old man said as he coughed up blood - John always had to add extra blood to appease Torren - ‘and I don’t blame you for hating me and wanting me dead. This world is a hard one, and I knew I wouldn’t be there to make you strong enough to survive in it.”

Torren’s eyes were drooping, but he was fighting sleep to hear the end of the story. “So, I gave you that name and I left, because I knew you would have to get tough, it was that name that helped make you strong.”

“Ohhhh,” Torren said sleepily and smiled.

“Yep, so Besha didn’t kill his father. He helped him up and they shook hands and then went their separate ways. And Besha eventually learned to get on with people and he married a waitress and settled down. And when his son was born, what do you think Besha named him?”

Torren shrugged, losing the battle against sleep.

“John, of course, a good strong boy’s name. The End.”

“That was not very bloody, John,” Torren complained.

John tugged back the blanket and tucked the stuffed dog into the crook of Torren’s arm. “Whatcha gonna do? Next time we’ll do zombies.”

“Cool. ‘g night John.”

John kissed his forehead and ruffled his hair. “Goodnight TJ.”

Rodney was leaning in the doorframe with his arms crossed. “You totally ripped that off from Johnny Cash.”

“Classics are the best. Be happy I didn’t sing it to him.”

“Thank you for that.”

 

The End


End file.
